


My Silence and Yours

by wildimaginingsofhalfbakedideas



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Explicit Language, F/M, Frank Castle needs a hug, I just need the two of them to be friends, M/M, extreme violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-08
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-12 05:31:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12952362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildimaginingsofhalfbakedideas/pseuds/wildimaginingsofhalfbakedideas
Summary: When Karen Page first came to him with Bucky Barnes' story, Frank wasn't sure he wanted to get involved. The Winter Soldier was a ghost story, a tale told in the dark to scare your buddies. The Winter Soldier wasn't someone who needed saving. But Karen, with her bleeding heart and fierce determination, makes him understand that Bucky Barnes is more like Frank than he wants to admit. So he set out to do the impossible: save Bucky Barnes.





	1. Hydra isn't dead

**Author's Note:**

> After watching the Punisher, all I could think was that Frank Castle and Bucky Barnes should be friends. So this fic happened. Please indulge me.

The only sound in the room was the steady drip, drip, drip of blood onto the concrete floor. The only light came from a single, naked lightbulb in the center of the room, still swaying a bit from being knocked earlier. A man sat tied to a chair under the sickeningly weaving light. Or maybe that was the concussion making him feel sick. Hard to tell.   
His head lolled as he tried to maintain consciousness. Silently, he assessed his wounds. Two broken ribs, three more fractured. Four broken fingers, two of which were missing fingernails. There was some internal organ damage to his kidneys and liver, possibly his spleen as well if he remembered his anatomy correctly. Contusions to his face and limbs. One eye was almost swollen shut. The worst part was the silence that came from his left arm. Normally his brain was filled with the background noise of his neurons firing and connecting with the software in the metal arm, but now there was nothing. No hum, no electricity, no communication with the appendage whatsoever.   
The Winter Soldier stayed calm. He was always calm. He calculated how long it would take for each injury to heal, ranging from a couple hours to several days, but when he when he tried to calculate how long it would take to regain feeling in his left arm, his mind came up empty. There was no information to use to calculate, no previous experience to rely upon. In all his time as the Winter Soldier, for every time he had been tortured and brainwashed, he had never been disconnected from the new arm since it had first been attached. This was new territory and it unsettled him. Nothing unsettled the Winter Soldier. Fear had been burnt out of him – literally – but this, this scared him.   
Despite his continued ability to think and appraise the situation, his mind was sluggish and his memory was foggy. This, thankfully, was familiar, unlike the arm situation. He took refuge in the familiarity and used it to draw his thoughts away from the unnatural emptiness on his left side. Where was he? He reasoned he must be in a Hydra safehouse, given the strength of the drug they had apparently used on him and the fact that no one else he knew was capable of incapacitating him to the point of vulnerability. And if anyone knew how to disable his arm it was Hydra. The human part of him, the part of him that used to be Bucky Barnes, screamed from somewhere deep within. It wasn’t a scream of fear or pain, but rather a howl of rage. The Winter Soldier shook his head, trying to rid himself of the noise. It had been so long since he had felt any sliver of humanity. Or had it? Flashes of memory came back to him. The helicarrier. Steve. The water. The fight on the bridge. Steve. Captain America. The target. Steve Rogers, who used to put newspaper in his shoes because they didn’t fit right. Steve Rogers, who used to be small and sickly and so terribly brave. Steve Rogers, the man who refused to fight to save his own life.   
A tiny voice cheered in the back of his head, pleased with the fact that he was remembering. But it only made him more confused. He shook his head again, his identity bleeding at the edges like an oozing wound. He felt Bucky Barnes starting to come back, piece by piece, until the two of them occupied this bleeding, broken vessel side by side. Or maybe it was just the drugs kicking in.   
Suddenly the metal door, the only way in or out of this room he noted, swung open violently.   
“Good morning, Soldier,” greeted the man who entered, his face still in shadow. His voice made the Winter Soldier’s hair stand on end. He tugged uselessly against the chains holding him down. They had been designed for him and they held well. He growled in frustration.  
“Uh oh, looks like someone isn’t feeling very cooperative. Do we need another dose? Or maybe something a little more…severe,” the man threatened, finally moving into the light. The Winter Soldier didn’t recognize him. He was an average looking white guy, balding a bit in the middle of his head, wearing an overly large white lab coat. He looked like a child playing dress up, except with a wicked grin and a cattle prod in one hand. He turned it on and the end glowed blue with sparks as electricity zapped back and forth between the prongs. The Winter Soldier almost laughed. A cattle prod? He’d faced worse. So much worse.  
The man grinned down at him, perhaps reading his mind. “Oh, this little thing? I’m sure you’ve had worse than this. But who has actually known how to use it, I wonder.” With that, he pressed the prongs of the cattle prod in the groove of his non-functioning arm.   
The Winter Soldier was not expecting the agony that came after. The electricity traveled deep into the circuits of the arm, reigniting them and causing liquid fire to enter his brain in short, interminable bursts. Even after the man pulled away the prod, the pain continued. The Winter Soldier writhed and bit his tongue until blood flowed down his throat, but he didn’t scream. Eventually the pain subsided to a tolerable level and he slumped in the chair, breathing heavily through his mouth, letting blood drip onto the chair between his legs.   
“Now do you understand?” the man asked, getting hideously close to the Soldier’s face. “You will cooperate. You will behave. Or else I get to have a lot of fun.”  
The Winter Soldier seethed internally. He was used to feeling emptiness when being tortured, hollowed out except for the pain he silently endured, but this time he was angry. He remembered. Not everything, but enough to know that he had been in hiding before being taken this time, that he had gotten away, that he’d been healing. That he’d been almost a human being again. They couldn’t take that away from him this time, not again. Never again.  
He raised his head, his good eye boring into the man’s face before him. It was a challenge, one he knew he would regret as soon as that fucking cattle prod came at him again, but his rage carried him through. This time, he screamed and Bucky Barnes screamed with him. He screamed until his throat bled, until his lungs ached with the effort. Still the pain continued.  
He was so preoccupied with the pain flooding his limb and brain that he didn’t notice the sounds of bodies thumping lifelessly onto the floor in the corridor outside the room. He didn’t notice the metal door open slowly and soundlessly and a shadow enter. He didn’t notice the single gunshot that turned his tormenter into a corpse on the floor, nor the fact that the cattle prod dropped, still sparking, onto the concrete. He barely even noticed when strong hands unlocked his chains and lifted him bodily from the chair, carrying him fireman-style out the single door and down the hallway. His external screaming had stopped some minutes ago, but the agony that continued to rip through his brain refused to subside. Eventually, as sunlight hit his face and he was blinded, he succumbed to unconsciousness


	2. Karen Page is a force of nature

Frank had been keeping an eye on Karen Page for months now. He’d meant what he said to Lieberman that day: Karen is family. He couldn’t leave her alone, especially not when she had such a propensity towards finding the most dangerous situation and stepping straight into it. Not when seeing her, seeing the ferocity in her smile and the gentle curve of her blonde hair falling over her shoulder, made him feel human again. Made him feel some kind of emotion that wasn’t rage and pain.  
He watched from afar, occasionally having to take out a scumbag or two intent on getting to the too-curious reporter with a big mouth. He let the whisper spread that Karen Page was protected. That she wasn’t to be messed with. Fear was the best weapon he had to protect her. If the bad guys were afraid to touch her, she would be safe. And that was all he wanted. Mostly.  
Sometimes when he passed her apartment, the flower pot he’d given her would be out on the window sill. It pained him, but he never reached out, never called, never knocked on her front door. Until one day the pot appeared on the sill again, but with a note. He aimed his scope at the white square, reading the words, “Please, I need your help.” Karen knew he’d been watching her, protecting her. Of course she did. She wasn’t stupid. Far from it.  
With his duffel bag over one shoulder and his baseball hat pulled low, Frank warily climbed the stairs to Karen’s apartment. It was a cheap place, no security guard, no alarm system, nothing to stop him from walking straight up to her front door. It made him uneasy that she lived in such a vulnerable place where anyone could find her, but there wasn’t nothing he could do about it. He knocked on the door.  
Within seconds, the door swung open after the sound of several locks clicking open. At least she had the sense to lock her door securely.  
“Frank,” Karen breathed. “I didn’t think you’d actually come.”  
Frank shuffled awkwardly, anxious to get out of the open and more anxious about seeing Karen again face to face. He shrugged. “Well I did. You gonna let me in?”  
Karen blushed a little. “Oh yeah, of course.” She moved quickly out of the way, turning sideways so Frank could enter. “Sorry for the mess,” she said, waving her hand toward the piles of folders and newspapers and scraps of paper that littered the living room.  
Frank didn’t say anything. He just moved into the middle of the room, glancing around at the windows and stepping carefully over the pieces of what must be her newest project. He saw articles with Captain America’s face on them, some in other languages, as well as many articles about accidental deaths or murders that happened years ago. He tried to piece the possible story together, but he felt like he was missing a crucial link. What was she up to?  
Karen stood with her arms crossed, watching him take in her apartment. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been there before, but she knew he wasn’t critiquing her decorating. He was checking for flaws in her security and was checking to see if her new article would force him to protect her. Again.  
“You want a beer?” she asked, remembering last time she’d offered him a beer in her apartment. How long ago that seemed now.  
“No thanks,” he replied, his voice gruff. He looked up at her now and Karen felt vulnerable under the weight of his gaze, as she always did. She saw him for who he truly was, understood him, empathized with him, but sometimes it felt like he did the same to her, no matter how many secrets she held from him.  
She cleared her throat, but Frank spoke before she could say anything. “You said you needed my help.”  
“Right, yeah.” Karen took a step towards him, intending to just move past him and get her laptop off the coffee table, but as she got closer, her body moved of its own accord and she found herself flinging her arms around his neck in a rough hug. He grunted at the impact and stood still, but Karen ignored his surprise and his discomfort in favor of hugging him tighter. Eventually his arms moved to wrap around her in return and he was hugging her back.  
“Thank you,” she whispered. She didn’t have to say for what. He knew.  
After a long moment, they broke apart and Karen continued on her original mission to get her laptop. She sat down unceremoniously on the couch, tucking her hair behind her ear, and gestured for Frank to do the same. After a brief hesitation, he did.  
“Okay so, I’m sure you’ve heard of the Winter Soldier.” Straightforward. He loved that about her.  
Frank raised his eyebrows. “Everyone’s hearda him. Pretty sure he was the scariest ghost story I ever heard on tour. What about him?”  
“Well he’s not just a ghost story. You know what happened in D.C., back before the Incident?”  
“Yeah, Captain America took down a bunch of helicarriers. Rumor is they were gonna use them to control the world or some shit. Is that what your new article is about? Captain America?”  
“Sort of. It’s really about Bucky Barnes. He was there that day on the helicarrier.”  
The name rang a bell, but Frank couldn’t place it. Maybe he’d read it somewhere?  
“Bucky Barnes was Steve Roger’s best friend growing up,” Karen said in answer to his unspoken question. “They went to war together. Then Barnes died on a mission, or so it seemed.”  
“What do you mean ‘or so it seemed’?” He didn’t like where this was going. This felt big, bigger than anything else Karen had worked on. Which was obviously why she was chasing after it.  
“Bucky Barnes is the Winter Soldier.”  
Frank tensed, unsure of what to say. Clearly Karen was sure about this, but he couldn’t wrap is mind around the idea of Captain America’s best friend being the same terrifying monster under the bed he’d heard about.  
“Even if he is,” Frank said slowly, “what does that mean? Do you have proof? You can’t just go publishing that Captain America’s best friend is a murderer and a psychopath.”  
“Interesting choice of words coming from you,” Karen observed dryly. “And of course I have proof, otherwise I wouldn’t have come to you. I made an…unexpected friend a few days ago who gave me this.” Karen leaned over and grabbed a stack of folders from the left of the couch. She handed it to him.  
He decided to ignore the “unexpected friend” comment for now and open the files. Inside was document after document about the Winter Soldier. Most of it was redacted, a good portion of it was in Russian or German, but the parts that he could read were…atrocious. They spoke of decades of torture and brainwashing on a level that he couldn’t even comprehend. For someone to survive all of this…  
“And that’s not all,” Karen continued, reaching for more puzzle pieces around her. “I think I’ve put together a semi-complete list of his kills, as well as a list of possible Hydra agents involved in the Winter Soldier project. Some of them are dead now, but most of them are still alive. Two of them live here in New York, actually.”  
“Wait a minute, Karen, slow down. What are you planning to do with all of this information? You can’t go after Hydra. They’re too big, too dangerous. Worse than Fisk. Worse than anything you’ve ever faced before. Worse than anything I’ve ever faced before.”  
“I know that. I know. I’m not stupid.”  
“Not saying you are.”  
“But we have to help him.”  
“First of all, we don’t have to do anything. You are staying out of this. And second, help who? The Winter Soldier? I’m pretty sure he can take care of himself.”  
“How you can you say that?” Karen nearly yelled. “You read the file, you’ve seen what they did to him, you know that he’s just a man who’s been through too goddamn much and who can’t fight Hydra by himself. He’s just a soldier who’s been fucked over and need our help.”  
Frank sighed, taking off his hat and running his hand through his cropped hair. “Even if he does need help, how would I even know where to start? I don’t know anything about Hydra or about the Winter Soldier. Hell, I don’t even know if he’s still alive.”  
“He is,” Karen assured him. “And I think I know where to find him.”  
Which was how Frank found himself on the rooftop of an abandoned building on the outskirts of the city, looking through the scope of his rifle at another, seemingly abandoned building across the street. Men walked the perimeter at even intervals in pairs, armed to the teeth with shiny new weapons. It was clear that whoever hired them paid them well in both gear and money. At 1307, a black limousine rolled up to the property, allowing a balding man in a suit to exit the car and meet the group of guards that came out to welcome him. One guard held up a white lab coat, clearly too big for the smaller man, which he accepted and shrugged into. Frank wasn’t sure what kind of game was being played, but he didn’t like it.  
After watching the new arrival enter the building with his team of guards and the limo drive away, Frank waited for the next round of guards to take their turn patrolling. He lined up his shot, taking into account windage and elevation. If he had calculated the angle correctly, the bullet should enter the first guard, exit, and take out the second without him having to fire a second shot. He took a breath, released it slowly, found his natural point of aim, and squeezed the trigger. The bullet fired exactly as he had planned and both guards dropped silently to the ground. He figured he had exactly three minutes before the other guards realized what had happened.  
He quickly climbed down the side of the building via the fire escape, slinging his rifle across his back. Once on the ground, he sprinted across the street to the other building and up the short steps to the front door. He stopped with his hand on the handle, breathing deep and even as he drew one of his weapons in his right hand. He opened the door.  
Immediately he was met with two guards, which he had been expecting. He dispatched him with two quick shots. The silencer on his gun was all that prevented a horde of guards from falling upon him at the sound of their companions being killed. He moved silently through the hall, pulling a knife out of his belt with his left hand. Luckily, the layout of the building was straightforward and it was obvious that the Winter Soldier was being kept in the basement, in one of the old storerooms. That’s where he would keep him if he were them.  
The rest of the guards were easy to get through. They didn’t see him coming and he cut through them like they were nothing. Finally, he got to the basement corridor which had the most guards. At this point, the rest of them had figured out that the others weren’t answering their comms and that there was an intruder. Even though they were ready for him, they still were no match for him. Their bodies dropped one by one to the floor. Frank didn’t feel an ounce of sympathy for them, especially when the screaming started.  
It was the worst sound he had ever heard. He had heard the sound of grown men screaming before, had heard and seen them being tortured for information. But this scream was beyond anything he had ever heard. It was a scream of agony, sure, but not just physical pain. It was rage and fear and pain and everything awful a human being could endure being expressed through a single, unending sound. He was surprised by how long it went on. The guy’s voice was going to be shredded when he was done.  
Although he hadn’t been completely on board when Karen had first asked him to save the Winter Soldier, hearing him scream like that made Frank want to violently rip apart anyone who had played a role in causing him that kind of suffering. No one deserved that. Especially not a POW like Bucky Barnes who had done nothing worse than be a loyal friend and a good soldier his whole life before being broken and put back together as some kind of Frankenstein’s monster.  
Okay so maybe he had read the file a few many times. But Karen had been right. Bucky Barnes deserved better.  
Which was why he took pleasure in firing a bullet into the head of the man currently sticking a cattle prod into the Winter Soldier’s metal arm. Frank thought that once the cattle prod was no longer electrocuting his circuits, the Winter Soldier would stop screaming and the pain would cease. But it wasn’t until he got the keys to the heavy duty cuffs around the Soldier’s arms and legs and started unlocking them that the screaming stopped. And that was only because there was nothing left but blood in his mouth, not because the pain stopped. Frank could tell by the glazed look in the Soldier’s eyes that he wasn’t aware of anything but the pain. He didn’t even react when Frank lifted him out of the chair and carried him down the hall, up the stairs, and out to the car he had waiting a couple blocks away.  
Frank wasn’t sure exactly when the Soldier had passed out, but when he got to the car he was out. He figured that was probably for the better. Carefully, he laid the Soldier in the backseat and climbed behind the wheel, heading for the only place he knew where he could keep the supersoldier safe: Lieberman’s old safehouse.


	3. Freedom has never tasted so bitter

When Bucky woke up, he was in a new place. He could tell because it smelled different. The smell of blood was still there, but it wasn’t the old, damp smell of mold and concrete and burnt wires. There was something almost familiar about the scent – coffee? Someone was definitely making coffee.  
Bucky kept his eyes shut, his breathing unchanged from when he had been deeply unconscious just moments ago, and took in his surroundings with his remaining senses. He was laying on a cot. Military grade, he guessed, given that it was uncomfortable as shit. There was a blanket thrown haphazardly over him. The worst of his injuries had been tended to and the least of them had already healed. That meant he’d only been out for a few hours, five at the most. His boots were still on, though his shirt was missing. Blessedly, that horrible pain was also gone. All that was left was a dull ache in his skull as a reminder of what had happened.  
He heard someone moving around in what sounded like a kitchen. Thumping mugs on a counter, scraping a spoon against the ceramic sides, generally not bothering to be quiet. Bucky guessed it was the guy who’d saved him. The Winter Soldier was silent in his head, meaning that he likely wasn’t in any danger, but he still erred on the side of caution, listening intently for a few minutes before deciding to stir.  
“Rise and shine, soldier boy” greeted a gruff voice. Bucky opened his eyes. The man before him was tall, broad shouldered, with dark eyes and a nose that looked like it had been broken at least a few times before. He looked almost familiar, but Bucky couldn’t decide where he’d seen him before.  
“You’re good. I didn’t even know you were awake until you moved.” Bucky didn’t say anything, just swung his feet over the side of the cot, his eyes confirming what his other senses had already told him. It was definitely a safehouse. Basement of an abandoned building from the looks of it. There was a glass room in the middle full of computers and monitors. There was a kitchen on the other side of it, where he had heard the other man moving around. A van was parked in front of a large garage door. It was pretty standard as far as safehouses went. Bare bones, but obviously well lived in. Bullet holes littered the walls, but any blood that had been spilt here had been cleaned up long ago.  
“Coffee?” the man offered, holding out a red mug in one hand and a white one in the other. A 1911 style .45 was strapped visibly to his hip and another gun, smaller, was hidden at his ankle. Bucky didn’t react to sight of the guns. He was injured, but he was relatively certain that this man wasn’t a Hydra agent and he also knew that he could take him if he tried to shoot him, even with his left arm not working. He was just one man with a gun.  
Bucky accepted the coffee, cradling it in his working right hand to feel the warmth. It was terribly cold wherever they were and though he was used to the cold, that didn’t mean he liked it.  
“Not a talker, huh?” he shrugged. Bucky raised his eyebrow. The man had said more words in the past few minutes than Bucky had probably said in the past year. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d had a conversation with another human being. Yet, something made him clear his throat and respond.  
As soon as he mustered a “Who are you?” he remembered the screaming. His voice was absolutely destroyed. It sounded terrible.  
“Castle,” the man responded as he sipped his coffee, not giving anything away.  
Still, something clicked when he heard the name. Bucky had seen the man’s face on the news while he was holed up in a shitty motel a few months ago. There had been a trial. He tried to remember the details, but couldn't.  
Castle watched the recognition in Bucky’s eyes, his hand twitching slightly toward his gun, but Bucky just nodded.  
“You heal fast. That’s good,” Castle said, sitting down on a rolling chair in front of the cot. “I wish I had that ability.”  
Bucky could see why. Castle had two fading bruises on his face and he could tell by the way he moved that he also had some broken ribs. He hid it well, but so did Bucky and he knew the signs.  
Bucky just grunted in response and cautiously took a sip of his coffee. He was taking the risk and assuming that it wasn’t poisoned. Castle seemed like the type of person to shoot you in the face if he wanted you dead; he didn’t seem like the poison-your-coffee type. It was surprisingly good, the best he’d had in a while, and he sipped at it again.  
“Why did you save me?” This time his voice sounded slightly better, soothed by the hot liquid.  
Castle chuckled at that, surprising Bucky again. “It wasn’t my idea, I’ll tell you that much.”  
“Steve?” That was the only possibility he could think of, but it didn’t make any sense. Why wouldn’t Steve have come save him himself?  
“No. A friend of mine. A reporter. She was the one who figured out who you were and sent me after you.”  
Bucky nodded again, processing this. A reporter that he didn’t even know, who was friends with this stranger, had figured out that the Winter Soldier and Bucky Barnes were the same person and sent Castle to save him. It all seemed a little…much.  
“She has a soft spot for killers with a tragic backstory,” Castle explained, his voice almost rueful.  
Bucky looked up at him then. He could see a softness in his eyes, a look that was at odds with rough exterior. A look that reminded him of how Steve used to look at him, before.  
Almost as soon as it had appeared though, it was gone. Castle was suddenly back to business.  
“Tell me what happened.”  
Bucky shifted, his left arm still dead weight hanging from his shoulder – an issue he’d have to deal with soon – and internally winced at the lance of pain from his still healing body. He didn’t know how to answer Castle’s question.  
“Don’t you already know,” he asked instead, “since you’re the one who found me?”  
“I was hoping to hear it from you.” Castle’s eyes were intense, focused, unyielding. “Let’s start with how those Hydra assholes got ahold of you.”  
Bucky sighed, staring down into his coffee to avoid the piercing stare of the other soldier – he was definitely a soldier, based on everything from his posture to the training he must have had to take out an entire building of Hydra agents – and trying desperately to answer the question for himself. He had come back to New York of his own volition, he was pretty sure, but he didn’t know why. Or how Hydra had found out.  
Castle finally took a sip of his own coffee, leaning back in his seat as if to convey that he had all the time in the world to wait for Bucky to answer. There was a stiffness to his back that betrayed him, however, and Bucky knew that for all the friendliness of the cup of coffee, the first aid, the blanket, it was all an act. He’d seen it a thousand times before, when Hydra still thought they could get him to kill people through any means but absolute brutality.  
It was a good interrogation technique; get someone off guard, make them relax, get them to trust you. It made sense. Too bad Bucky didn’t have any information to give him.  
“Look, buddy, I know you have no reason to trust me. To be honest, I don’t trust you either. But I can help you. And it looks like I’m the only one doin’ that right now.”  
That last part should have stung. But all Bucky felt was tired. He sighed. “I would tell you if I knew. But I don’t.” His tone left no room for argument, but Castle just kept staring at him with those intense, brown eyes.  
“Look, all I know is that I came back to New York, I got sloppy somehow, and ended up in that shithole, beat half to hell and drugged. Then you showed up.”  
Castle calmly took another sip of his coffee, unfazed by Bucky’s impatience. “So you’re telling me, someone got the drop on the world’s deadliest soldier, drugged ‘im, beat ‘im up, and got ‘im back to a secure location without anyone noticing? I don’t buy it.”  
A muscle twitched in Bucky's jaw, but he didn't respond. He stared down at his now half-empty coffee cup, trying to come up with a reason to not punch Castle in the face. “I’m just sayin’ that something’s missing from your story," Castle continued. "Maybe you’re telling the truth when you say you don’t know, but there’s definitely something more goin’ on.”  
“Why don’t you get your friend to help you,” Bucky bit back, “since she seems to be the one who knows more about what’s going on than I do.”  
“I plan on it. But I was hopin’ you’d be a little more helpful.”  
Bucky sighed again, this time in frustration. He was in pain, in a place he didn’t know, with a man who had saved his life for some still unknown reason, and all he wanted was to sleep. This game they were playing, whatever it was, only made him more tired. He was grateful to not be in Hydra’s clutches anymore, no doubt about that, but he seemed to always be trading one shitty situation for another. At least when he was on the run he’d had all four limbs working and he’d been relatively free to make his own choices. He slept when he wanted, ate when he wanted, moved from city to city and never had to deal with people asking him too many questions. Sure, he was always looking over his shoulder, leaving no trace of himself anywhere he went, but it was a type of freedom he hadn’t had in seventy years. Right now, he missed it.


End file.
